출애굽기 2:2의 Musar

A person has two kinds of skin that serve as clothing/protection for man. One is the skin/leather of animals, i.e. shoes. The other is his own skin. We find in Job, 10,11, עור ובשר תלבישני, "You have dressed me with skin and flesh." The latter is the material part of man that he shares with the animal kingdom. Man whose physical origin was אדמה i.e. "holy soil" should have been garbed in כתנות אור, the word אור spelled with the letter א. The fact that this word was spelled with the letter ע instead, represented the demotion of man. He was now clothed in skin and flesh being compared to the animals since he had sinned. Moses ascended to a level where his face reflected אור as had been intended for all of mankind (compare Exodus 34,29 et al, כי קרן עור פניו). The word קרן אור suggests that the word for skin should have been spelled with the letter א in the first place. He gave off rays of light. He had been predisposed for such stature from the day he had been born, to wit his mother's comment at his birth "she saw that he was good" (Exodus 2,2). Our sages comment that this was in response to the whole house having been filled with light (Sotah 12). One of the superior qualities of Moses' prophecy was that he received communication from G–d without his body undergoing any kind of weakening, as we have explained elsewhere. This was a level Joshua had not attained. If Joshua stood on ground described as holy, then the ground Moses stood on must be viewed as the holiest of holy. This is why Moses had to take additional steps to sanctify himself.

The latter's 3 souls, i.e. the "lower" soul, life force נפש, was re-incarnated in the body of the Egyptian who was slain by Moses. (Exodus 2,2) His "middle" soul, רוח, was re-incarnated in the body of Korach, whereas his "upper" soul, i.e. נשמה was re-incarnated in the body of Yitro. Cain had killed Abel because he had wanted Abel's second twin sister for himself. She was re-incarnated in the person of Tzipporah, and that is why Yitro represented Abel at that point.

The Torah is telling us that if only Adam had not sinned, his body would have been as holy as the כתנות אור, the garments of light that man was meant to wear in Gan Eden. Under the circumstances, these garments have become כתנות עור, garments of skin and flesh, something physical. As long as Adam did not need those garments, he was placed in גן עדן, to help preserve it since he was not a stranger, i.e. זר, in that environment. Once he had become forced to garb himself in garments made of materials that come out of the earth he had become a stranger in that environment, and this situation did not change until Aaron became anointed by holy anointing oil as High Priest. Compare what I have written earlier in Parshat Tetzaveh, concerning Moses performing priestly functions dressed only in a white tunic instead of in the High Priest's garments. This meant that he had never been a זר, stranger, at all; the whole house filled with light at the time he was born (Exodus 2,2, as quoted in Sotah 12). Moses' unblemished condition continued until, in the end, he himself radiated light, as we know from Exodus 34,29. This is as if he had been garbed in the כתנות אור, that we described as the state of man in his innocence in גן עדן. This is what was meant by the white tunic in which he performed the sacrificial service. It meant he did not need to do anything to rehabilitate himself in order to achieve the state of holiness necessary for a High Priest to perform sacrificial service, זרות, alienation, was a condition that did not come into existence till after the כתנות אור, garments woven out of light, had been withdrawn, to be kept in hiding until the future, the time of the Messiah, just as the original light G–d had created at the beginning of the creative process had also been "hidden" due to man's sin (Compare Tanchuma Noach 3). Moses did not have to wait for that light to re-appear.

The patriarch Jacob, who is described in the Torah as איש תם, as opposed to אדם מועד לעולם, was the first person since Adam who did not fit that mould. He was extremely careful not to waste even a single drop of his semen so that he was able to describe Reuben, who was born to him when he was 84 or 85 years old, as ראשית אוני, the product of his first drop of semen (49,3). As a result [of not being guilty of sins committed while asleep. Ed.] he had to pay only half the damage for any sins he committed, i.e. his death was not total, he did not die as Jacob, only as Israel, as we have explained at length in פרשת וישלח. Significantly, Jacob was 130 years old when he arrived in Egypt. Both he and his descendants made up for the 130 years that Adam had emitted semen nocturnally without sleeping with his wife. The redeemer (Moses), whose skin later on radiated light like a קרן, (Exodus 34,29) was born when his mother Yocheved was 130 years old (Sotah 12 on Exodus 2,2).